"If helping the poor is a crime, and fighting for freedom is rebellion, then I plead guilty as charged." --Crispin "Ka Bel" Beltran

Wednesday, March 15, 2006

Denounce attempts to muzzle PCIJ!

March 15, 2006*

Denounce attempts to muzzle PCIJ!Defend press freedom!

We, human rights advocates under the banner of KARAPATAN, express our support for the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ) at this time that it is facing intimidation and threats of intervention from the fascist Arroyo regime.

We denounce the sinister machinations of the government through the Philippine National Police and its agents to file inciting to sedition charges and secure a search warrant and warrants of arrest against the PCIJ and its staff.

Indeed, there seems to be no let-up in this paranoid government's onslaught on press freedom and civil liberties if only to stay in power amidst the still haunting question of its legitimacy.

The expose of PCIJ on attempts to search their editorial offices is proof that the Arroyo regime is terrorizing media. It is this state terrorism that must be rejected by all freedom-loving Filipinos.

What exists in this country is not democracy but tyranny.

We support the PCIJ and journalists nationwide in the continuing struggle to be free from intervention and to defy the reprisal of the state just as we join the ranks of fellow Filipinos for the defense of our right to information through a free press as enshrined in Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Philippine Constitution and many other human rights instruments.